The term "Complement" is not simply another word for the "post-Head string" -- post-Head strings are not always Complements. This is because the post-Head string is not always required to complete the meaning of the Head. Consider:

[NP My sister, who will be twenty next week,] has got a new job.

Here the relative clause who will be twenty next week is certainly a post-Head string, but it is not a Complement. Notice that it contributes additional but optional information about the Head sister. In this example, the post-Head string is an ADJUNCT. Like the other Adjuncts we looked at earlier, it contributes additional, optional information.

Adjuncts can occur in all the phrase types, and they may occur both before and after the Head. The following table shows examples of each type:

Complements, then, bear a much closer relationship to the Head than Adjuncts do.

2.Adjuncts are "stackable"

In theory at least, we can "stack" an indefinite number of Adjuncts, one after another, within a phrase. For example, consider the NP:

Adjunct

Adjunct

Adjunct

Adjunct

the book

on the shelf

by Dickens

with the red cover

that you gave me...

In contrast with this, phrases are limited in the number of Complements that they can take. In fact, they usually have only one Complement. Ditransitive verb phrases are an exception to this. Recall that they take two Complements:

Adjuncts can appear before the Head of a phrase, as well as after the Head. For example, in the following NP, the Adjunct sudden is part of what we have been calling the pre-Head string:

?

Adjunct

Head

Complement

the

sudden

realisation

that nothing has changed

In this section we will look at the function of the remaining part of the pre-Head string. In this example, what is the function of the in the phrase as a whole?

We refer to this part of the phrase as the SPECIFIER of the phrase. Again, Specifiers may occur in all the major phrase types, and we exemplify them in the following table:

Phrase Type

Head

Typical Specifiers

Examples

Noun Phrase (NP)

noun

Determiners

the vehiclean objectionsome people

Verb Phrase (VP)

verb

`negative' elements

not arrive

never plays the piano

Adjective Phrase (AP)

adjective

AdvP

quite remarkable

very fond of animals

Prepositional Phrase (PP)

preposition

AdvP

just across the street

An important point about Specifiers is that they relate to the Head + Complement sequence, and not to the Head alone. For example, in the AP very fond of animals , the Specifier very relates to fond of animals, not just to fond:

Amy is very fond of animals

Q. Amy is very what?

A. *Fond

A. Fond of animals

In functional terms, then, the three-part structure of a phrase can be summarised as: